January 07, 2015

Hubble Space Telescope’s Stunning New View Of ‘Pillars Of Creation’

ONE of the most iconic
space images ever seen has been given an update, as the Hubble Space Telescope
revisits the ‘Pillars of Creation’.

The original photo, taken
in 1995, revealed three giant columns of gas bathed in the ultraviolet light
cast from a cluster of young, massive stars, NASA
reports.

The structures exist in a
discrete region of the Eagle Nebula, or M16, 6500 light years from Earth. (A
light year is approximately 10 trillion kilometres.)

The new, sharper images
have been taken to mark the telescope’s 25th anniversary in April. This time,
the pillars have been photographed in near-infrared light, as well as visible
light. The infrared provides a view of the pillars as silhouettes against a
background of a multitude of stars, Astronomy
Now reports.

The clarity is achieved because
the infrared light penetrates much of the gas and dust, except for the densest
regions of the pillars.

Although the original image was
dubbed the Pillars of Creation, the new image suggests they are, in fact, in the
process of breaking down. “I’m impressed by how transitory these structures
are,” says Paul Scowen of Arizona State University in Tempe. “The ghostly bluish
haze around the dense edges of the pillars is material getting heated up and
evaporating away into space. We have caught these pillars at a very unique and
short-lived moment in their evolution.”

The Hubble telescope also
thrilled spacegazers with its largest image ever assembled - a sweeping
view of a portion of the Andromeda
galaxy, our “galactic next-door neighbour”. The image features over 100 million
stars, more than two million light years away and in a panorama stretching
61,000 light years.